Sailing to Easter Island

Nine of Cups anchored off the beach at Anakena, Easter Island, in a spectacular South Seas setting.

In springtime of 2004, We sailed as team aboard the sailing vessel Nine of Cups on a voyage from mainland Ecuador towards Galápagos Archipelago and onward to Easter Island. It absolutely was an adventure that lasted a lot more than 90 days, and included extended explorations of the countries and much more than 4, 000 miles of sea cruising.

I traveled with my friends David Lynn and Marcie Connelly-Lynn, the owners of Nine of Cups, that four many years into a ten-year circumnavigation aboard their particular vessel. I first came across David and Marcie in Charleston, South Carolina, at the beginning of their circumnavigation, and I've used their particular progress ever since. In late 2003, they invited me to participate in their adventure, and what an adventure it was!

I obtained a brief taste of Southern American tradition in mainland Ecuador, then we sailed and motored towards the Galápagos Archipelago and went to the hawaiian islands for nearly one month. We marveled at the special plants and creatures, including woodlands of tree-like cacti, the popular monster tortoises, marine and land iguanas, the unique penguins, and a lot of comical blue-footed boobies. One-day we journeyed by open vehicle and horseback up a dormant volcano, and moved through its steaming crater during a tropical downpour.

We then sailed to Easter Island, a voyage of almost 2, 000 kilometers that took 19 days. Our voyage started out inside near-calm climate for the doldrums, proceeded through days of boisterous cruising when you look at the quick trade winds, and ended with variable and unsettled climate once we approached the island.

We visited the mystical and enigmatic island for 15 days, however it was a difficult destination to visit by boat. We liked time ashore photographing the giant carved stone statues and touring the quaint city, but we in addition spent days on the boat, chased from anchorage to anchorage by bad weather and harsh seas. Even though island it self had been exotic and interesting, the difficulties of visiting by-boat triggered some disappointments, at the very least for me personally.

Our after that destination had been said to be the Juan Fernández Archipelago, off the coastline of Chile. We sailed above 600 kilometers eastward to the islands, but our plans were upset by days of bad weather and a distressing amount of problems with the ship. We had been forced to refigure our programs and chose to go back to Easter Island, and this percentage of our adventure became the 1, 200 mile "voyage to nowhere".

Soon after going back to Easter Island, I moved ashore and willing to travel home to Baltimore. We spent weekly ashore revisiting the island, this time around protected to bad weather and harsh seas. We wandered through volcano craters and lava tunnels, visited old stone quarries and caverns, and viewed and photographed lots of carved rock numbers. Although Nine of Cups sailed on to mainland south usa, my time ended up being up, and my adventure finished when I gone back to Baltimore.

Today all I have are memories. Well, not exactly. During the journey, we took over 5, 400 photos and kept a daily diary that expanded to a lot more than 350 pages. I've edited all the details down to an even more manageable dimensions, and I also'm happy to provide it for the pleasure on following website pages.

We have split the information into a few areas, keeping the chronological purchase of the journey. You'll browse the primary areas by simply clicking here thumbnails. Each area starts with reveal dining table of contents for that section, permitting additional navigation. To see a whole table of articles for the whole log, visit the website Map. If you need, you can go through all pages sequentially by clicking the "Next Page" switch in the bottom of every page.